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In an oddly timed move, the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank directed that the U.S. discount rate, which is the rate at which the Federal Reserve lends to privately held U.S. banks, be raised to .75%, an increase of .25% effective Friday, the 19th of February.

The Fed raising its discount rate by 25 basis points to .75% shocked the markets earlier today. The US dollar after weakening during early US trade, promptly rallied at the news. The Fed appears to be making good on its word about starting to remove the excess stimulus measures from the economy. The prospect of the US hiking rates before the EU and other major developed countries has made investors dollar bullish. This change in sentiment can be seen in the USD/JPY as the pair reached a new high of 92.10 upon the news.

A recent report from The Wall Street Journal newspaper which suggested that the fiscal worries in Greece could spill over to other areas within the Euro-zone, precipitated the Euro’s fall in Asia today. Late last night, it was reported that some Italian municipalities took out derivative contracts, which if substantiated, could threaten public finances.

The single currency Euro rebounded in Asian trading today, despite continuing investor concerns over the Greek debt crisis. Some market players appear inclined to believe that the Euro’s broad decline has reached a turning point, and combined with the U.S. Dollar’s retreat, and whetted risk appetite, helped prop up the Euro against safe-haven currencies.

Despite continuing investor concerns over the heavily debt burdened nation of Greece, the single currency Euro inched up in Asian trading today, hovering close to a 9-month trough versus the U.S. Dollar. Once again, a meeting of finance ministers from the Euro-zone failed to produce a definitive plan to help those countries within the Zone which are fiscally troubled, including not only Greece, but Spain and Portugal.

The single currency Euro moved closer to a 9-month trough versus the U.S. Dollar in Asian trading today, as investor doubt grew as to whether or not European Union policymakers would help the heavily debt burdened nation of Greece.

With investor expectations that leaders of the European Union will lay out their proposal for a Greek bailout package when they meet later in the day in Brussels, the single currency Euro rose versus the Japanese Yen and the U.S. Dollar in Asian trading.

The U.S. Dollar slid versus the single currency Euro in Asian trading today, though it held close to the 8½ month peak struck last week. Until investors’ concerns are allayed about the fiscal well being of certain Euro-zone countries, the Euro will continue to be under heavy pressure.

All of the major stock markets closed lower on Friday; the only variable was how big the losses were. In Europe over the course of last week, the FTSE fell by 2.5%, closing at 5060.9; the CAC dropped by almost 5% closing at 3563.8; the Dax shed 3.1%, ending the week at 5434.3.

The single currency Euro surged in Asian trading today, following the central bank of Switzerland’s selling off of Swiss Francs. As reported at 4:07 p.m. (JST) in Tokyo, the Euro was holding steady at 1.4730 Francs, a .6% rise on the day.

A report from Bloomberg says that the US government will officially recognize that job losses from April 2008 to March 2009 increased by 825,000 above previous reports. Since this is data is not relevant to Friday's NFP, I think traders will more then likely brush this off and focus more on the NFP report.

The U.S. Dollar steadied against multiple currencies in Asian trading today after it made brief gains precipitated by the respective falls of the New Zealand and Australian Dollars on worse than expected economic data.

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